


being heard

by novoaa1



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, Kind of a drabble, Mental Health Issues, a bit of a character study, its soft, miss mystic falls pageant, not specified but you know how lizzie has her highkey breakdowns and throws things, very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 08:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19971394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: Logically, Lizzie knows that the world doesn’t revolve around her—but, that most certainly doesn’t stop her from feeling as if it does, and acting (or rather,reacting) accordingly.And yet, sometimes, the grievous chemical imbalance in her brain does get it right (though, admittedly, that’s something of a rarity)—sometimes, it forces her to see things she wouldn’t normally see, remember things she wouldn’t normally remember, question things she wouldn’t normally question… like, for example, the ever-burning rage that sits dormant in her chest directed solely towards one Hope Mikaelson, a sort of rage she’s beginning to fear isn’t really rage at all.Or: Lizzie has a lot of feelings... But, she's trying, okay?





	being heard

**Author's Note:**

> i basically ship everyone on this show with each other it's kinda whack
> 
> anyways that one scene in the pageant for legacies got me inspired... lemme know what you think?
> 
> (oh also im gonna come back to edit it later)

It’s a pitiful cliché, she knows: the bottle-blonde angst-ridden teenager with a thousand crushes on a thousand stupid boys and a loving family around her that she always takes for granted and the wholehearted belief that literally everyone she meets is trying to oppress her in some entirely inexplicable way. 

Now, logically, Lizzie Saltzman knows that that’s bullshit—she knows that the world doesn’t revolve around her, and that the countless needling ways in which Hope and Josie and Raf and everyone else work to make her life that much harder is the farthest thing from intentional. 

It’s just life, she knows… and, yet, she can’t help the poisonous narrative in her brain that insists that just the opposite is true. 

Logically, Lizzie knows that the world doesn’t revolve around her—but, that most certainly doesn’t stop her from feeling as if it does, and acting (or rather, _reacting_ ) accordingly. 

And yet, sometimes, the grievous chemical imbalance in her brain does get it right (though, admittedly, that’s something of a rarity)—sometimes, it forces her to see things she wouldn’t normally see, remember things she wouldn’t normally remember, question things she wouldn’t normally question… like, for example, the ever-burning rage that sits dormant in her chest directed solely towards one Hope Mikaelson, a sort of rage she’s beginning to fear isn’t really rage at all. 

It’s not false to say that Lizzie has a rather predictable pattern of fixating intently on things—Raf, Miss Mystic Falls, her 16th birthday… _Hope_.

She fixates. She’s a fixate-r. It’s what she _does_. 

She feels… _lost_ without something to anchor her, trapped, _small_ … and, Lizzie Saltzman is not _small_. 

No, she’s the opposite of small—she’s big, larger than life, because her anger makes it so. 

She’s not overlooked, or unheard, or forgotten, because she’ll yell and scream and cry loudly enough to ensure that she never has to be. And, maybe that means that people aren’t listening because they want to (and instead because they have no other choice), but, for her, that’s good enough. It has to be. 

And yet, somehow, it’s not good enough where it matters; it’s not good enough for _Hope_ , and that grates on Lizzie more intently than anything.

Hope doesn’t listen to her when she calls, doesn’t turn to look as she enters a room, doesn’t rise to Lizzie’s bait and argue vehemently like Lizzie so desperately hopes she might; and, really, Lizzie thinks she’s far past the point of denying that Hope’s attentions mean the world to her, that they always have, no matter the lies she force-fed herself for so long to ensure she believed the contrary.

At the end of the day, she knows why she called for the most nuclear option as soon as the genie (or, whatever— _jinni_ ) granted her that first wish, why she’s projected such a dizzying amount of hate upon Hope that physically pains her sometimes to feel… At the end of the day, she _cares_ a hell of a lot more than she’ll ever admit—cares about the endless green of Hope’s catlike eyes, about the way Hope’s hand feels so warm intertwined with hers, about those full pinkish lips of hers that Lizzie yearns to kiss.

And, when it’s the tail end of the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant, and ‘Hope Mikaelson’ is announced this year’s Miss Mystic Falls, and Hope breaks and sobs and _cries_ under the spotlight, positively radiating beauty and elegance and grace in Lizzie’s mother’s intricate violet dress, Lizzie goes to her without a moment’s pause; in that moment, she doesn’t care about the years of bitterness they’ve shared or the way Josie had just stormed off in a huff or the insistent voice in the back of her brain telling her she shouldn’t. 

In that moment, her body moves as if possessing a mind of its own, wrapping a teary-eyed Hope in the warmest of hugs until her erratic breath evens out and her sobs abate and all that’s left is the two of them swaying gently upon an empty dance floor surrounded by murmuring onlookers, something settling upon the two of them that’s so unspeakably powerful and profound, like a gentle understanding that Lizzie couldn’t force herself to break in a million years. 

Lizzie walks Hope back to her room, afterwards, even if it’s something they’ve never done before, and Lizzie doesn’t know why on Earth Hope is allowing it (not that she’s not incredibly grateful for it, obviously)—and, of course, Hope still looks utterly radiant as they pause awkwardly in the halls outside her door: Caroline’s purple dress hugging every curve of her figure, mascara smeared _adorably_ under jade-green eyes, the delicate curls of hazelnut-brown locks perfectly framing her beautiful tear-stained face.

She’s wearing heels, but she’s still an inch or two shorter than Lizzie, and, maybe that’s what does it, that subtle reminder that the heaven-sent girl before her is still the same one she’s spent years making into an enemy as if she ever had any right to do so—but, either way, something gives within her, and she’s sure she couldn’t have stopped herself from saying, “You look beautiful, Hope,” in a tone riddled with quiet sincerity if she’d tried. 

Hope blinks then, long eyelashes fluttering, something entirely unreadable flitting through her deep verdant gaze, and Lizzie’s sure she’s made a mistake, sure she’s finally gone too far and set herself up for the most painful rejection of all—and then, Hope reaches out to trace her jaw with a slightly trembling hand, green eyes sparkling with something Lizzie doesn’t dare to hope is affection as she leans in and gently tugs Lizzie down for a chaste kiss, tender and sweet. 

The soft but firm press of Hope's glossed lips against her own is entirely unlike anything she's ever felt, like a blessing of unmitigated divinity that unobtrusively quiets the screams and resentment raging within her chest—like maybe, just maybe, she doesn’t have to anchor herself in indignation and fury any longer… not when she has Hope to do it instead. 

Hope kisses her and, for once in her life, Lizzie Saltzman doesn’t worry about being forgotten or staying larger than life or screaming loudly enough to be heard.

Hope kisses her, and Lizzie Saltzman thinks that she’ll never feel small or insignificant or unimportant ever again.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

**Author's Note:**

> *sighs* and to think, i really didn't like lizzie's character in the beginning..... (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/))


End file.
